Disagreeing To Agree
by Gil Shalos1
Summary: When Jessica Sheets and Jack McCoy meet at the 27th Precinct in "Shangri-La", they clearly already know each other well. This story suggests one possibility for how. Consistent with my other stories, and taking place concurrently with "I Hope We're Not Going To Have A Problem", "Unexpected", and "The Ones After".
1. Agree To Disagree

Jessica Sheets: A world where black-letter law bends under the weight of empathy.

Jack McCoy: And that's a good thing?

Jessica Sheets: If you're human.

Jack McCoy : Opposing counsel hasn't called me that in a long time.

Jessica Sheets: Ah, But Jack, I know where you live. [She looks through the window at the man under arrest for statutory rape of her own client.] So that's the bastard, huh?

Jack McCoy: Now that's the Jessica I remember.

– Shangri-La, episode 2, season 13

* * *

 _Apartment of E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy_

 _7 pm Friday 13 October 1995_

* * *

"That's her," Claire Kincaid said at the knock at the door. "Remember —"

"The char siu is her favorite so don't eat it all, don't ask about her mother, and don't forget to mention her article in the Harvard Law Review, got it," Jack McCoy said. He grabbed Claire's hand as she started toward the hall and pulled her close for a kiss. "Don't worry, Claire. It's just dinner, with a friend of yours. I think I can manage."

She put her hand flat on his chest. "Jess is not just a friend, she's my _best_ friend, and if you screw this up and she doesn't like you, Jack…"

He grinned down at her. "I feel like I'm meeting your parents."

"More important," Claire said. "I actually _care_ about what Jess thinks of you. So remember, the article was called —"

"It's oh so quiet, judicial commentary on sexual orientation civil rights violations, I've _got_ it," McCoy said, stole another kiss and let her go.

He heard her open the front door and exchange greetings with her friend. _Discreet_ , Claire had assured him. _She_ _'_ _d drink arsenic before she spilled any of my secrets._

 _I want her to know you, Jack, it_ _'_ _s important to me._

So here he was, about to host a dinner party — if Chinese takeaway on the kitchen table qualified as a dinner party — for his secret office romance and her best friend.

 _Jesus, I must be in love._

"Jack," Claire said from the doorway. "This is Jessica. Jessica Sheets. Jess, this is Jack McCoy."

Claire's friend was almost the same height as Claire, slim and dark-haired as well. They could have been sisters, except Jessica's voice had a slight trace of a rust-belt twang and her face was squarer and more mobile than Claire's. In fact, her eyebrows climbed almost to her hairline as she looked McCoy up and down before shaking his hand. "I hear a lot about you, Jack," she said. "Some of it even good."

"Jess …" Claire said in an undertone.

Jessica had either not had, or not heeded, the same lecture McCoy had heard from Claire about _best behavior_ and _getting along._ "Probably not the true parts," McCoy said. "Can I offer you a drink?"

"Jess brought wine," Claire said, holding up a bottle. "I'll open it."

"I considered champagne," Jessica said, "but I wasn't really in the mood for celebrating."

McCoy watched the way Claire's shoulders tightened as she went to look for the corkscrew. _Terrific_. It was one thing to be prepared for an awkward dinner with someone whose company he might or might not enjoy.

It was quite another to realize that Claire had set him the task of winning approval from a woman who showed every sign of hating his guts on sight.

 _But then, why wouldn_ _'_ _t she?_ Claire had told him about Judge Thayer, and the humiliating coda to _that_ workplace relationship. She'd no doubt told her best friend all about it at the time.

"I'm going to put some music on," McCoy said. "Jessica, will you help me chose?"

Only one of her eyebrows went up this time, although high enough to make Leonard Nimoy jealous. "I don't know much about music recorded before the eighties," she said. "Before then, Claire and I were too young to have our own radios."

McCoy ignored the dig at the age difference between them. "Have a look," he suggested. "There might be something you like."

The minute they reached the living room, Jessica turned and jabbed a finger in his chest. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but —"

"I care about Claire," McCoy interrupted her. " _You_ care about Claire. You don't have to like me, but will you for chrissake call a truce until the end of dinner?"

She folded her arms and studied him, frowning fiercely. "All right," she said at last. She pulled a record off the nearest shelf at random and shoved it at him. "I'll forget I know what you're really like — for this evening."

"Thank you," McCoy said wryly. He looked at the record, and raised his eyebrows. "London Calling, for a dinner party?"

Jessica shrugged. "Whatever that is," she said, and strode back into the kitchen.

McCoy put the record back, chose something a little more mellow for the turntable, and joined the two women in the kitchen.

Where he worked harder than he'd ever worked in his life, the bar exam included.

Usually, when he exerted himself to be particularly charming, he was pushing at a door that was already at least ajar. Jessica Sheets was closed and locked and, given the circumstances, McCoy couldn't exactly try to flirt her into a better mood.

He steered the conversation to their years together at law school, and was an appreciative audience for their anecdotes. He was appropriately amused by Jessica's dry humor, and suitably outraged by the various indignities young women lawyers had to put up with from colleagues and judges, even at the end of the twentieth century. He made sure that Jessica got the lion's share of the pork. He told his best war stories, making sure to include the recent ones that showed Claire in a good light.

Jessica was polite and courteous and watched him with a raised eyebrow that said _I know exactly what you_ _'_ _re doing, Jack McCoy, and I'm not fooled._

"So, Jess, congratulations," Claire said, with what she no doubt thought was natural casualness. "Congratulations on your article. It was very … thoughtful."

Jessica grinned. "You haven't read it," she said.

"No, I … uh, skimmed it," Claire said. "It was very … well reasoned."

If the topic had come up earlier, McCoy might have said something similar. But it was late, he was more than a little tipsy, and he was exhausted from an evening that might as well have been spent talking to a brick wall. _A brick wall that made up its mind to dislike me before I opened my mouth and shows no sign of changing its mind._ "I read it," he said. "The premise is undermined by your reliance on litigation as a primary civil rights mechanism."

"Come on, Jack," Claire said quickly, with a glance at Jessica. "The only reason I can practice law at all is the women who sued to be admitted to the bar —"

McCoy shook his head. "Not true. The first woman to hold _your_ job, Claire, anywhere in the country —"

She nodded. "Clara Foltz. Admitted to the California Bar after the state legislature changed the law to allow —"

"After the state legislature passed a law which _she_ wrote, opening up the bar to women and to men who weren't white, as well." McCoy refilled his glass. "The point is, the U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled that women had no constitutional right to practice law. Ms Foltz made an end run around that determination. Suit your tactics to your circumstances."

Jessica rested her arms on the table and leaned forward. "So you're saying gay and lesbian Americans should give up pursuing their constitutional rights —"

McCoy leaned forward as well. "I'm _saying_ that constitutional rights are what the Supreme Court says they are, and the court is more likely to uphold a states' rights argument than expand the interpretation of the fourteenth amendment. What do you want, Jessica, to advance equality or to go down in a blaze of glory in Washington?"

"Jack …" Claire said.

"I don't want some patchwork framework where my rights change when I cross state lines!" Jessica said.

"Neither do I, but expecting the judiciary to break new ground while ignoring the legislature is running headfirst into a brick wall over and over again." Jessica's glass was empty as well, and McCoy refilled it. "Besides, you don't have the court you need at the moment. Bank your appealable issues until —"

"Thank you for the advice," Jessica said sarcastically.

"I'm not giving you advice, I'm disagreeing with your opinion," McCoy snapped. "If you don't want people to disagree with you, don't publish in the Harvard Law Review!"

Jessica took a gulp of her wine while Claire stared into her own glass. "Why did you disregard the influence of Arabella Mansfield?" she asked.

McCoy blinked. "I don't disregard —"

"Patriarchy and the Penal Code, New York University Law Review," Jessica said. "You're not the only one who did their homework. Not one mention of Mansfield. Why not?"

"Because when I wrote that article I was about your age, and likewise assumed I knew everything," McCoy said acidly.

"And now you're certain of it," Jessica shot back.

McCoy shook his head. "A few years of criminal practice was more than enough to rid me of _that_ illusion."

"It certain rid me of _my_ illusions," Claire said. She shook her head. "The state places a vulnerable child in an abusive home, and we prosecute the woman who removed her from that home? We get a slam dunk conviction for murder and only _then_ find out we've convicted an innocent man?"

"Annette Fennady and Hank Chapel?" McCoy asked, and she nodded. "Fennady was acquitted. And Hank Chapel was cleared and released."

"I don't remember you being so sanguine about it at the time," Claire said.

"I got over it," McCoy said blithely, draining his glass.

She frowned. "Doesn't it bother you that jury nullification and Lennie Briscoe's instincts are the bulwark against a miscarriage of justice?"

"It's an imperfect system, Claire," McCoy said, not for the first time. "Filled with imperfect people. We do our best."

Claire shrugged. "And if our best isn't good enough? I have thirty-nine A felonies on my desk this week, Jack. I can't possibly look into them all enough to be sure there isn't some error, some _assumption_ by the police, that's going to lead to another wrongful conviction."

"That's what defense lawyers are for," McCoy said. "And if you're juggling thirty-nine major cases, I don't think an unwarranted _conviction_ is what you need to worry about."

"Join the side of the angels, Claire," Jessica said. "Come work with _me_ and help me keep the justice system honest."

" _Honest_ isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think of defense attorneys," Claire said wryly.

"The system needs _them_ , too," McCoy said.

Claire raised an eyebrow. "The system needs Paul Kopell?"

McCoy drew breath to tell her just exactly how low that blow was.

Jessica spoke first. "I refuse to count Kopell on my team, Claire. He was working _against_ the justice system, and the legal profession is better off without him in it. And —" she leaned forward, waving her wineglass for emphasis, " — if I ever go off the reservation like that, hell, if I put a toe over the canons of ethics, I expect _you_ to come after me just as hard as Jack here went after Kopell." She took a gulp of wine. "Or we won't be friends."

Claire shrugged. "I can't imagine you ever would, but fine. You conspire to have anyone killed, I'll be sure and prosecute you for it."

"We keep each other honest. That's how the system works," Jessica said. She raised her almost-empty glass. "To the system. To our imperfect, occasionally nonsensical, often absurd, beautiful system."

McCoy raised his own. "To zealous defense attorneys."

"To ruthless prosecutors," Jessica countered.

McCoy nodded. "To splitting legal hairs."

"To caviling objections," Jessica said, one corner of her mouth twitching up.

"How about 'to justice for all'?" Claire asked.

"But Claire," Jessica said, tilting her glass a little toward McCoy. "That's exactly what Jack and I are already drinking to."

* * *

.oOo.

* * *

A/N: The cases Claire refers to are from "Nurture", episode 20 of season 4, and "Act of God", episode 17 of season 5, and "House Counsel" episode 10 of season 5


	2. An Imperfect System

_Chambers of Judge Lisa Pongracic_

 _100 Centre St, New York_

 _3 pm Wednesday, 1 November 1995_

* * *

Judge Lisa Pongracic leaned back in her chair. "Okay, counselors," she said. "You've got ten minutes. Go."

"Your honor, this invasive procedure carries a risk of miscarriage," Jessica Sheets said.

"It's a routine medical procedure performed hundreds of times daily around the country as a diagnostic tool," McCoy countered.

"On women who _want_ it," Jessica said. "My client doesn't. I can produce as many medical experts as your honor has time and patience to hear from who'll testify that amniocentesis would never be recommended to a woman of my client's age and health profile."

"And I can produce just as many who will tell your honor that the risk of serious genetic abnormalities is raised if, as the defendant asserts, _her_ father is also the father of her child," McCoy said. " _They_ will tell your honor that in _these_ circumstances, they would urge the defendant to have this procedure for diagnostic purposes."

"Only if Ms Fraser were considering aborting an unhealthy child," Jessica said quickly. "She has every intention of carrying the pregnancy to term. Amniocentesis carries a risk —"

"Less than half of one percent!" McCoy interjected.

"A _non-zero_ risk to the pregnancy, the health of the fetus, and to Ms Fraser's health. As such, any court order to force her to undergo this procedure would be a violation of her rights."

"She's a fifteen year old girl who isn't competent to make a medical decision of this magnitude," McCoy said.

"Her aunt, who is her guardian, _is_ ," Jessica said. "Your honor. Kylie Fraser endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. When she finally got up the courage to end her torment, Mr McCoy decided to prosecute her for what surely _must_ be seen to be an act of self-defense. Now he wants to compound her ordeal by forcing her to undergo an invasive procedure against her will!"

"If the results of the amniocentesis show that the deceased is, in fact, the father of Ms Fraser's unborn child, that has a significant bearing on how the People proceed," McCoy said. "I would expect Ms Fraser to be _eager_ to provide corroborating evidence."

"If that isn't prosecutorial misconduct, I don't know what is," Jessica said. "Risk your baby or face a murder charge?"

"I _do_ know what prosecutorial misconduct is, counselor," Judge Pongracic said. "And offering to reduce a charge if a defendant can corroborate an affirmative defense isn't it." She paused. "I can't order Ms Fraser to undergo this procedure, Mr McCoy. However, I can allow you to withdraw the charges, without prejudice, until such time as I _can_ consider an application for a warrant for D.N.A. evidence — such as in about four months."

"Your honor," Jessica said, "my client can't have these charges hanging over her head indefinitely at such a vulnerable time in her life."

"Four months isn't indefinite," Judge Pongracic said. "She won't be in custody. If she'd rather resolve this sooner, she can always agree to the procedure. Explain her options to her, counselor." She picked up a file from her desk. "Show yourselves out."

In the corridor, Jessica seized McCoy's arm. "And to think I was half-persuaded that Claire was right, that you were one of the good guys."

McCoy jabbed her in the shoulder with one forefinger. "Your client, Jessica, beat a man's head in with a baseball bat."

"Because he was abusing her!"

" _She_ says. There were no physical signs of abuse when she was examined at the hospital —"

"Apart from, I don't know, _her pregnancy_!" Jessica snapped.

"—and her teachers and school counselor saw no behavioral changes. She was a happy, outgoing girl and she _remained_ a happy, outgoing girl, a good student, all during the time she claims her father was molesting her. No truancy, no running away, no experimentation with drugs or alcohol —"

"She doesn't act like _your idea_ of a victim so therefore, she's lying? Children conceal abuse, Jack."

"Why doesn't she want anyone to find out who the father of that child is?" McCoy demanded. "Shouldn't she _want_ that in evidence at her trial? With a D.N.A. report proving the incest you wouldn't even break a sweat getting an acquittal." He opened his bag and took out a file. "Consider this an advance on discovery, Jessica. Kylie Fraser had an appointment with Planned Parenthood three days before she killed her father." He offered her the papers and when she didn't take them, pressed them to her chest. "I have two witnesses who say she attended in the company of a young Hispanic male. Her friends at school told the police that she was _dating_ a boy named Juan. Did your client tell you any of this?"

Jessica's flexible mouth twisted in a grimace. "That doesn't mean —"

"It means trial as an adult and Murder Two when I get that D.N.A. in four months' time and it turns out it's her _boyfriend_ _'_ _s_ baby." He let go of the file and Jessica grabbed it reflexively. "Talk to your client, Jessica. Persuade her to tell you the truth. And then do what your ethics tell you to."

He didn't wait for an answer.

Back at One Hogan Place, he set Claire Kincaid to drafting a motion to dismiss for their case against Kylie Fraser, and turned his attention to the next file in the pile on his desk. He was deep in a draft of his opening statement for _People v Northson_ when a knock on his door made him look up.

It had gotten dark while he worked, and beyond the circle of light cast by his desk lamp, his office was deep in shadow. A woman stood by the door, and it was a moment before he recognized her as Jessica Sheets.

"Jack," she said. "Can we talk?"

"You've spoken to your client," McCoy said.

She nodded, and came slowly across the room.

McCoy pulled his bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of his desk and set two glasses on his blotter. "And?"

"She'll go for Man Two. Minimum sentence, juvenile facility."

"I won't." McCoy poured a generous measure into each glass, and pushed one across the desk toward her. "Murder Two, fifteen to twenty, transfer to an adult facility after her eighteenth birthday."

"What if she could give you something else?"

McCoy picked up his own glass. "I'm listening."

" _Juan_ is twenty-three years old. Kylie will co-operate with a statutory rape investigation, including undergoing amniocentesis to prove he's the father. She'll give up his name and his address." Jessica stared into her scotch. "This girl doesn't deserve to do fifteen years, Jack."

"She killed a man," McCoy said tersely. "That earns her more than three years in a group home."

"And if she was acting in self-defense?"

"Then you wouldn't be here, talking to me," McCoy said.

"What if her father found out she was pregnant and was going to force her to have an abortion?" Jessica asked.

McCoy shook his head. "She had other options short of shattering his skull."

"She's just barely fifteen!" Jessica said. "How good were _you_ at considering other options when you were fifteen? How well did _you_ know your legal rights?" She leaned forward. "She's a victim too, Jack. Of this Juan, at least. That bastard manipulated her, he seduced her, she was under fifteen when he _impregnated_ her which makes it statutory rape — "

"And I'll prosecute him, if your client gives up his name. And if she doesn't, I'll get the cops working on finding him _without_ her help, and I'll prosecute him _then._ But Kylie Fraser is alive, and her father is dead. She took two major league swings at his head with a baseball bat and fabricated an abuse story to try and get away with it." He paused. "Manslaughter One."

"I can get that at trial with an E.E.D. defense, and you _know_ the jury is going to take one look at Kylie and give it to me."

"But you can't get a recommendation for ten years," McCoy said.

"She does ten, she'll lose custody," Jessica said. "I can't sell her on that."

"The first three in a juvenile facility that accommodates girls with children. After that, _providing_ the department of corrections has a positive report on her conduct, minimum security with the same accommodation."

Jessica shook her head. "And when her child ages out? She'll still have years on her sentence and her kid will be in the system."

McCoy put his glass down and leaned his elbows on his desk. "If you make an application to be appointed guardian _ad litem_ after the baby's birth, this office will join in support — on condition that the department of child services also gets a say."

Jessica nodded. "And you don't oppose a work-release program for her when she becomes eligible."

"I'll be guided by the department of corrections," McCoy said. "The outcome will be up to your client."

She frowned, thinking, and then nodded again. She held out her glass and McCoy clinked his against it. "Deal." She tossed back her drink and coughed. "How did you know? That she was lying?"

"The evidence." McCoy offered the bottle, and when Jessica held her glass out, poured her another drink. He put the bottle down and dug out a file from the stack on his desk. "Here."

She opened it. "This is the police report from the house. I've seen this."

"Second page," McCoy said. "Items in Kylie Fraser's room. One green school backpack."

Jessica frowned, reading. "Containing school books, pens, a calculator …"

"And a receipt from a pharmacy near her school from four weeks before the murder."

She shrugged. "So?"

"So _you_ might not recognize the cost of a pack of Trojans, but I did. She wasn't buying condoms for her father to rape her with." It was McCoy's turn to shrug. "So we asked her to consent to the amnio. And when she refused, I knew it was time to look a little more closely at Ms Fraser."

"Dammit." Jessica closed the folder. "And the Planned Parenthood appointment?"

"She's fifteen, she has no money of her own, where else is she going to go when she suspects she's pregnant?"

"She told me she had no idea, until they told her at the hospital after she killed her father."

"She told you her father had been sexually abusing her for two years, too," McCoy reminded her. "And today she told you she killed him because _he_ knew she was pregnant and wanted her to have an abortion. Defendants lie, Jess. Even to their own lawyers."

She shook her head. "This is the first time one's lied to _me_."

"That you know," McCoy pointed out.

"Aren't you a ray of fucking sunshine," she muttered, taking a gulp of scotch.

"Defendants lie. Witnesses lie. Victims lie. Get used to it, or you'll be taken for a ride every time." He paused. "Claire's planning to ask you to dinner again. Thursday week. Just giving you advance warning so you can get your excuses in order if you'd rather not."

She studied him. "Would _you_ rather I not?"

McCoy shrugged a little. "How miserable are you going to make me if you come?"

Jessica smiled. "Compared to last time? Maybe a five out of ten."

He grinned. "In that case, I look forward to a pleasant evening."


	3. Late Night, Early Morning

_Apartment of E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy_

 _11 pm Thursday 11 January 1996_

* * *

Claire Kincaid fought to get the words out through uncontrollable giggles. "Do you remember the time he caught a bird?"

"Oh, god, yes." Jessica Sheets splashed a generous measure of vodka into her glass and then into Claire's. Jack McCoy put his hand over his own glass when she lurched in his direction. _Chambers at 8 am tomorrow, and I_ _'_ _ll have to be sharp for court._

 _Given Claire_ _'_ _s going to be too hungover to do much besides sit next me and try to keep her breakfast down_.

"I thought you said he couldn't catch a cold," he said, because at least three of this evening's first ten stories about Horace the Law School Cat had focused on that animal's complete lack of physical dexterity. Jessica had even done an amusing impersonation of Horace trying to jump onto a chair and failing. _Demonstrating that if the law doesn_ _'_ _t work out for her, she's got a future in stand-up comedy._

"He couldn't," Claire said. "One morning I open my dorm-room window and there he is, bird in his mouth, pleased as punch with himself —" Jessica illustrated, eyes wide as saucers. "Then I realized the bird was flat as a pancake —"

"With tire-tracks!" Jessica finished, hooting with laughter.

"Sounds pretty smart to me," McCoy said. He gave it a beat, and grinned. "How many cats do _you_ know who can drive a car?"

Both women found that far more hilarious than it deserved. McCoy finished the last swallow of vodka in his glass and got to his feet. "I'm before Walter Schreiber first thing tomorrow," he said. "So, ladies, I'll leave you to it." He leaned down to kiss Claire's forehead. "If you finish the vodka, try to stick to the _cheap_ scotch."

She seized the front of his shirt and pulled him down for a proper kiss. "I'll be in soon," she said.

McCoy doubted it, based on his previous experience once Claire and Jessica got started on the subject of the adventures of Horace, now rescued from a life scavenging on campus and installed in charge of Jessica's tiny flat, but he only smiled and made his way to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him to at least limit the volume of the raucous laughter coming from the kitchen.

When Claire woke him up by tripping over the end of the bed and swearing, he rolled over and looked at the glowing numbers on the bedside clock. _Four in the morning_. Even by Claire and Jessica standards, that was impressive. "Turn the light on," he said.

"Sorry," she said, crawling onto the bed and flopping down beside him. "Didn't mean t' wake you."

"Did you call a cab for Jess?"

"She's on the couch," Claire mumbled. He felt her struggling to get her shirt off. "Hope y' don't mind."

McCoy did, a little, but less than he'd mind the idea of Jessica Sheets, drunk off her ass and out in the street trying to flag down a taxi. "It's fine. You going to be alright for court tomorrow?"

"Prolly not," Claire said, giving up on her shirt. "Sorry. Jess needed t' talk. Her girlfriend dumped her." She paused. "Shit. I shouldn't 've said that. F'get I said that."

"You're not telling me anything I hadn't guessed," McCoy said.

"How?" Claire asked.

"Little things," McCoy said. _Like her talking about_ her _rights changing at state lines. Like her not recognizing the price of a pack of condoms._

 _Like the way she looks at you, when you_ _'_ _re not looking at her._

"Little things," he said again. "I won't say anything. It's none of my business."

Claire patted his chest clumsily. "One of the good guys," she murmured, and began to snore.

McCoy rolled her over onto her side and got out of bed. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and padded quietly down the hall to the living room. Jessica was sprawled on her back on his couch, one shoe on, one off. He fetched a glass of water and, after a moment's reflection, a bucket, from the kitchen and put them on the coffee table. Slipping her remaining shoe from her foot, he gently rolled her over.

She mumbled something unintelligible without opening her eyes, and McCoy patted her shoulder. "Go back to sleep."

" 'kay," she said, but she opened her eyes. "Jack?"

"Yeah." He stood up. "I'll get you a blanket. And a pillow."

"Sorry," she said. "Sorry. V'ry bad manners. Sorry." Her face twisted into a grimace. McCoy reached for the bucket before he realized that, in fact, she was starting to cry. "Sorry. Sorry."

"It's okay," he said, sitting down on the edge of the couch again. He put a hand on her back, feeling her shoulders heaving with sobs. "Jess, it's okay."

"Oh, god, I'm — so — _stupid!_ " she cried, and burst into the sort of noisy, uninhibited tears only children and the very drunk allowed themselves.

McCoy scrubbed his hand over his face. _Two and a half more hours before I have to head into the office_. He wanted to spend it asleep, given the day he was going to have tomorrow. _But that seems increasingly unlikely._

"It's okay," he said again, patting her shoulder. "Jess, it's okay." _God, what do I say?_ There was always the truth. "It feels like the end of the world, but it isn't. I promise."

"Easy f-for _you_ t-to say!" she sobbed. "I love her! I l-love her, and she d-doesn't love _me_ , and she w-won't, ever, and I — I —" She gave a wordless wail of despair.

McCoy sighed, and rubbed her back. Generally, his experience with women in floods of tears was limited to witnesses or defendants. The strategies he'd developed weren't exactly appropriate here. _Would you like a moment to compose yourself, Ms Sheets?_ No, not even in his best, well-practiced, sympathetic voice. He settled for meaningless, soothing murmurs until her sobs eased to the occasional hiccup, and then he stood up.

"I'll get you that blanket," he said. "And tissues."

When he came back, she was out again, and this time she didn't stir as he slipped the pillow beneath her head and covered her with the blanket. He made his way back to the bedroom, where Claire was sprawled like a starfish across the entire width of the bed. She grunted a protest when he moved her over and then rolled back to drape herself over his chest.

He glanced at the clock. _Five o_ _'_ _clock_. If he fell asleep right now, he could get more than an hour's more sleep before the alarm. He'd survived full days in court on less. _Although not enjoyably._

For years now, he'd had his life more-or-less sorted out to his satisfaction. Women who worked the same sort of hours he did — admittedly, often because they worked those hours _with_ him — and who understood that the demands of the criminal law came first. Company when he had time for it, affection when he wanted it, sex when their schedules coincided …

And now he was trying to ignore Claire's soft snores long enough to get at least a few more minutes' sleep before a day that promised to be truly hellacious, having lost a precious hour of rest comforting her heartbroken, lovelorn, and extremely drunk best friend.

There was absolutely no reason for him to be happy about the situation, and yet, as he stared at the ceiling in the dark and listened to Claire mumble in her sleep, McCoy couldn't keep the grin off his face.


	4. Interpretation

_Arraignment Court_

 _9:00 am Friday 12 January 1996_

* * *

Judge Janice Goldberg looked over the top of her glasses. "To what do we owe the pleasure, Mr McCoy? It's been quite some time since we've seen you at the prosecutor's lectern."

An honest answer would have been _my assistant is probably still hanging over the toilet and swearing never to drink again,_ but discretion being the better part of valor and fortune favoring the brave, McCoy chose diplomacy over honesty. "I missed you, your honor," he said with his best charming smile.

"I missed you too, counselor, but my aim is improving," Goldberg said. She looked at her clerk. "What's on the menu today, Harvey?"

"Docket number 437, _People v Michael McKinley_ , one count armed robbery, one count felony assault, two counts conspiracy to defraud in the second," the clerk read, and handed the papers up.

"Plea?" Goldberg asked.

"Not guilty," McKinley said, not needing any prompting from Sally Bell at his elbow.

"Mr McKinley is a predicate felon with prior convictions for assault and robbery," McCoy said. "In addition, the crimes with which he is charged were committed while he was on bail for —"

"Bail revoked, remand ordered," Goldberg said. "Next?"

"Docket number 438, _People v Sarah Chen_ , charge is murder in the second degree."

McCoy was surprised to see Jessica Sheets approaching the bar with the defendant, although he was not surprised to see she that she looked a little green. "Jessica Sheets appearing for Ms Chen, your honor," she said. "My client wishes to enter a plea of not guilty."

"So entered," Goldberg said. "Do the people wish to be heard on bail?"

"The defendant is a foreign national with few ties to the community," McCoy said. "People ask remand."

"My client has no criminal record," Jessica countered. "She resides with her aunt and uncle, who will guarantee her appearance at trial. She's nineteen years old, your honor, and speaks little English. Remand is unduly harsh —"

"So is stabbing a man in the neck three times with a steak knife," McCoy said.

"Let's give her aunt and uncle some incentive to make good on that guarantee," Judge Goldberg said. "Bail is set at five hundred thousand dollars and defendant will surrender her passport. Next?"

McCoy relinquished his place at the prosecutor's lectern to one of the young A.D.A.s from downstairs as Sarah Chen was led away. He paused at the courtroom door long enough to let Jessica catch up, and held the door for her. "Didn't expect to see you here today," he said.

"Justice demands sacrifices, Jack," Jessica said.

He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. "Are you sure you're sober enough to provide effective representation?"

"No," she admitted. "Which is why you won't have my motion to suppress my client's statements to the police and dismiss the charges until later in the day."

McCoy frowned. "On what grounds?"

"Pesky little thing called Miranda, I think you've heard of it," she said.

"Oh, come on!" McCoy said.

"A cogent legal argument, counselor," Jessica said.

He yanked the file back out of his bag and flipped it open. "There's a signed waiver right here, Jess."

"Ah, but not a meaningful one," Jessica said.

"The police provided a Chinese interpreter," McCoy protested.

She patted his arm. "Right country," she said. "Wrong dialect."

"They obviously understood each other well enough for him to be able to translate Sarah Chen's confession!" McCoy snapped.

She arched one eyebrow. "Did they? And that's a genuine question, Jack, not an arguable assertion. Do _yourself_ , as well as my client, a favor, and look into it."

McCoy shook his head, but not in disagreement. He'd have to — for no other reason than to satisfy himself, even if Jessica hadn't prefigured the fact that it would become the subject of a motion _in limine_.

They reached the courthouse door and stopped.

"In other news," Jessica said brightly as she put her briefcase down and began to put on her coat, "I am apparently an embarrassingly maudlin drunk. So there's that."

McCoy took the coat from her and held it for her slip her arms into the sleeves. "Happens to the best of us," he said. "I've been picked up off the floor of one or two bars myself, over the years."

Jessica turned, fastening her coat buttons. She kept her eyes on her fingers as she spoke. "I might have said something about — ah. That is, I …"

"Not my business, not anyone else's," McCoy said quickly.

"If you could see your way clear to not mentioning it to anyone," Jessica said, still not meeting his gaze. "I just want to get my career started properly before I become … _labeled._ " She shrugged. "I know we're not really friends, but I —"

"Do you have any cash on you?" McCoy asked.

Startled, she looked up, and then nodded. She fumbled in her coat pocket and produced a bill, then offered it to him.

McCoy took it. "Thank you for the retainer, Ms Sheets," he said.

"The retainer?" She blinked, and he saw the penny drop. "You _won_ _'_ _t_ tell anyone."

He held up the note. "I wouldn't," he said. "And now you can be reassured that I _can_ _'_ _t_."

Jessica nodded, the corners of her mouth turning up. "Thanks, Jack," she said softly.

McCoy checked his watch. "I'm due in Part 18," he said. "I recommend a decent breakfast, if you can keep it down, and at least an hour's more sleep."

"Thanks, Jack," Jessica said again. "I guess maybe Claire was right about you, after all." Surprising him, she went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "One of the good guys."

"Don't tell anyone," McCoy said.

She grinned, and took the bill from his fingers with a deft twitch. "Thank you for the retainer, Mr McCoy. Rest assured, I take attorney-client privilege _very_ seriously."


	5. The End Of The World

_Mount Hope Cemetery_

 _Monday May 27 1996_

* * *

Jack McCoy stood and watched Claire Kincaid's mother and stepfather receiving the condolences, one by one, of her colleagues and her friends.

Her mother had made it clear to Adam Schiff that she didn't want to talk to McCoy. In fact, her exact words had been _I can_ _'_ _t stop him coming, but …_

He couldn't blame her. She'd both met him and learned of his relationship with Claire for the first time at the hospital. _The worst of all possible times._ And he'd made the worst of all possible impressions. Still drunk, stinking of liquor, raging at the doctor who'd come to tell them that there was no chance, no hope, no possibility of Claire ever waking up.

McCoy knew he should be ashamed of how he'd behaved, but he couldn't find it in him to care. He knew that Claire's mother's loss was of an unimaginable magnitude. He was a father, he could appreciate — if not understand — that burying a child was unbearable. But that was on the other side of the vast chasm that had opened up between him and everyone else in that moment in the hospital corridor, though. It was meaningless, like everything was meaningless.

If Claire's family didn't want to talk to McCoy, that was fine by him. He didn't have anything to say to them, anyway.

He didn't have anything to say to anyone.

He stood and watched the line of mourners file past Claire's weeping mother, feeling the rain trickle down the back of his neck. He knew the platitudes they were uttering, because they'd been said to him over the past few unbearable days. _I_ _'_ _m sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry._

Meaningless, empty words, said only to make the speaker feel better, filling McCoy with a wild rage he could barely contain every time he heard them. _Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._

 _The world has ended, that deserves more than fucking_ _'_ _sorry'._

"Jack," a quiet voice behind him said.

He turned. Jessica Sheets stood, her face bone white above the unrelieved black of her dress and below the gray of her umbrella. McCoy tried to work out what to say to her, and eventually settled on, "Jess."

"I tried to talk to Claire's mom —" she said.

McCoy raised his hand to cut her off. "It's fine. It doesn't matter."

She shook her head. "You should be able to —"

"It doesn't fucking _matter_ , Jess, Jesus, it doesn't make any difference, _none_ of this makes any fucking _difference —_ " Jessica didn't flinch as his voice rose to a shout, but McCoy caught the slight widening of her expressive eyes, the flare of her nostrils, and stopped himself. "I'm —" _sorry._ God, he was going to be sick. He could taste the bile at the back of his throat and only the old hangover trick of breathing hard through his nose enabled him to swallow it back.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Jessica asked.

"Sure," McCoy said. He didn't particularly want company, but he didn't particularly want to be here, and he didn't particularly want to be alone. There was only one thing he wanted, and he could never have it again, and everything else was just background noise to the hollow ache that had taken up residence in his chest. "Where?"

"On Thursday morning I went to the liquor store and bought a half-dozen bottles of vodka and a half-dozen bottles of scotch. Horace is standing guard over the five or six left. Come help me finish them off."

"Fine," McCoy said.

"My car's this way," Jessica said.

She didn't talk while she drove, for which McCoy was grateful. It meant he could lean his head back and close his eyes and concentrate on continuing to breathe, which had become something he wasn't entirely sure he'd remember to do without thinking about it since the ringing phone in his apartment had fallen silent and Adam Schiff's voice had come crackling out of the answering machine.

 _Jack, it_ _'_ _s Adam. Pick up the phone._

 _It's Claire._

 _You need to come to the hospital, Jack._

"How did they tell you?" he asked abruptly.

Jessica paused, gaze on the traffic ahead. " _You_ told me."

McCoy turned to look at her. "I don't remember doing that."

"Well, you did."

He paused. "Was I …?" _Kind? Cruel?_ And god, what did it matter? Was there a way to break that kind of news that made any difference? "Never mind."

"You said, _Jess, Claire_ _'_ _s dead,_ " Jessica said. "You told me there had been an accident, and that she'd been knocked unconscious immediately, and she'd never come to." She paused. "Was that true?"

"I hope so," McCoy said. "That's what they told me." It was his turn to pause. "I suppose they always say it, so we won't think about her suffering." Then he remembered. "No, it's true. I didn't hear it from the doctors. Lennie Briscoe was in the car with her. He was the one who told me."

"I'm glad," Jessica said. "I'm glad it was fast, and I'm glad Detective Briscoe was with her. She likes him. She has some great stories about him." Her hands tightened on the wheel until her knuckles were white and her mouth worked. "Had. She _had_ some great stories about Detective Briscoe. Jesus fuck dammit, Jack!"

"All of that," he agreed wearily. "All of that, and more."

When they reached her apartment, McCoy found it was much like his own at the moment, although much smaller, and with the addition of one large orange cat. The same piles of papers; the same clothes tossed over furniture; the same empty liquor bottles scattered on the floor; the same stale smell of alcohol and grief.

"Horace, Jack McCoy," Jessica said. "Jack, Horace Kincaid-Sheets, Esquire."

He patted the cat. "Esquire?"

"Claire —" Her voice caught, and she swallowed. "She says he audited enough classes to qualify." Jessica dug around in a box by the couch and straightened up with a bottle of scotch in each hand. "Do you need a glass?"

"Christ, no," McCoy said, and accepted the bottle she offered him.

Jessica shoveled several dry-cleaning bags full of clothes off the couch one-handed and kicked them out of the way. "I think this is where we're supposed to share stories and reminisce," she said, flopping onto the couch and putting her feet on the coffee table. "But if you don't mind, I'd rather just drink."

"Perfect," McCoy said, sitting down beside her and propping his feet next to hers. He raised the bottle he held to his lips as Jessica lifted her own.

For a while they drank in companionable silence, or at least, in shared silence. _Companionable_ was somewhere on the other side of the vast wilderness McCoy had been lost in since Wednesday night. Horace the Law School Cat prowled around the room for a while, and finally decided that McCoy wasn't dangerous. He jumped up onto Jessica's lap and she stroked his back with the hand not occupied by her scotch bottle. After a few moments, McCoy realized that Jessica was crying. Silently, without sobs, just a steady leak of tears running down her cheeks. McCoy didn't think she was even aware of them.

"Pace yourself," he said. "You don't want to reach the throwing up stage before you pass out."

"Always with the advice, Jack," Jessica said sarcastically, but she lowered the bottle.

McCoy let his head rest against the back of the couch. Numbness was coming closer, but it was still too far away for his liking. He needed to drink more, but the scotch he'd already drunk was sitting a little uneasily on his stomach and his advice to Jessica held true for himself, as well.

"What do you call a hundred lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?" Jessica said. McCoy opened his mouth to supply the punchline to the tired old joke, but Jessica wasn't finished. "That's the last thing I said to her. On the phone, on Tuesday. She was in a filthy mood, and I started telling her lawyer jokes and that was the last thing I said to her."

"I thought we weren't going to talk," McCoy said. _To hell with my stomach_. He took another long pull at the bottle.

"She hung up on me," Jessica said.

McCoy sighed. He considered just getting up and walking out, but when he raised his head the room spun a little. _I can do this. I can talk to Jess for a few minutes._ "She was upset about the execution. That's all. Nothing to do with you." _And everything to do with me._

Jessica nodded, and fell silent again, _thank god._

"To hell with her," McCoy found himself saying aloud, and at Jessica's shocked look. "What I said. She was late, and I said _to hell with her_. And I left the bar." He shrugged. "So a lawyer joke … sounds pretty good to me, right now."

"But you didn't say it to _her_ ," Jessica said.

He shook his head without raising it, the room lurching a little with the motion. "Doesn't matter."

She turned a little on the couch to face him, Horace protesting. "What was the last thing you said _to_ her?"

 _The car. The argument. The argument in the car, in the car she died in._ He closed his eyes. "I told her I'd cover for her with David Silverman. Plea bargain, an armed robbery that ended with the bodega owner dead. So she could go home, take the day." He shook his head again. "Hardly better. Talking about case conferences."

He felt her hand on his. "Jack, in our world, _I_ _'_ _ll handle your case conference_ means _I love you_. And Claire would have known it."

 _I_ _'_ _ll cover for you with Silverman._ McCoy felt his eyes burn, and realized he'd miscalculated. _Should have eaten something._ A little food to buffer the scotch and he would have been able to get to numbness, and then oblivion, fast enough to skip straight past the point where Jessica's words actually meant something. Fast enough to get to the point where nothing meant anything at all. _I_ _'_ _ll cover for you with Silverman._

 _Maybe you_ _'_ _ll feel better._

Whatever had lodged in McCoy's chest in the moment he'd seen the doctor walking down the hospital corridor toward Claire's mother with that particular, professionally sympathetic expression was trying to tear its way out through his diaphragm. _Claire._

 _I_ _'_ _ll cover for you with Silverman._

It hurt so much he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't _think_. Beside him, Jessica was sobbing in great shuddering gasps that shook her from head to toe, clinging on to his hand with bruising force. _She lost Claire too._ She was Claire's best friend, and Claire would expect him to —

 _If she wanted to have any expectations of me, she could have damn well stayed alive._

 _To hell with her, anyway._

 _I_ _'_ _ll cover for you with Silverman. Maybe you'll feel better._

McCoy forced himself to move, to put the bottle in his free hand down on the floor by the couch, to raise his arm and put it around Jessica's shoulders. She clung to him, tears soaking through his shirtfront, convulsed by a storm of grief that somehow loosened the agonizing knot in his own chest, someone else whose world had ended as comprehensively as his had, with one drunk driver running one red light.

They sat like that as the afternoon faded into evening, until the room was too dark to see.

Until the day of Claire's funeral was finally over.


	6. A Notable Alumni

_Apartment of E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy_

 _9 pm Tuesday 15 June 1999_

* * *

The phone rang, and Jack McCoy ignored it. He wasn't in the mood for company, Lisbeth wouldn't be calling this late, and since it was Abbie Carmichael's night to catch Majors, there was absolutely no reason for him to pick up the phone.

The machine clicked on and his own voice brusquely told the caller to leave a message. McCoy listened with half an ear, just on the off-chance something had come into Complaints that was serious enough for Abbie to think he should handle it personally, but there was no message. _Another telemarketer._ It was several seconds before he realized he hadn't heard the machine click off, as it would have if the caller had hung up before hearing the whole message.

He sighed, and got up to lift and lower the receiver. _Prank call._ His fingers were on the phone when he heard something at the other end of the line. Muffled, but unmistakable: a sob.

He raised the receiver and held it to his ear instead of hanging up on the call. "Hello?" There _was_ someone there, he could hear them breathing, the hitching gasps of someone crying, and trying not to. "Hello?"

"Jack," Jessica Sheets said, and began to sob in earnest.

 _Jesus Christ, what_ _'_ _s happened?_ He'd seen her only … recently, a cup of coffee in the diner across from the courthouse, their semi-regular catch-up. They'd tried drinks and dinner a few times, but it turned out that an entire evening was too long for their mutual stock of professional conversation to entirely fill. _And once we_ _'_ _ve stopped talking about cases and precedents and recent judicial rulings, there's really only one topic we have in common, and she's not something either of us can bear to talk about for more than a sentence or two_.

But they had coffee, and talked shop, the last time only … _last November_ , he realized. Not all that recently at all.

"Jess, what's happened?" McCoy asked. Something terrible, from the sound of it. He stretched to grab a pencil and a legal pad from his desk. "Jess," he said, in the reassuring tone he always used for fragile witnesses, for victims and relatives of victims. "Take a deep breath, Jess, and tell me where you are."

"H-h-home," she managed to get out between sobs.

"Are you safe? Just say yes or no, Jess. Are you safe?"

"H-h-horace died!" she wailed.

McCoy let out a breath of relief, and dropped the pencil, only then becoming aware that he was holding the phone tightly enough to hurt his hand. "Horace the Law School Cat?"

"Y-y-yes! I th-thought he was _asleep_ but h-h-he's _c-c-cold,_ he's c-c-cold!"

Horace Kincaid-Sheets, Esquire, the stray cat that Jessica and Claire had jointly adopted in law school. "Shit, Jess," McCoy said. "Is there someone there with you?" _God, what_ is _her girlfriend_ _'_ _s name? She told me … Janine? Jane?_ He was sure it started with 'J', he'd noticed the coincidence at the time. "Janet, or whoever?"

"G-god, Jack, Jenny and I b-broke up in _February._ "

"Is there something I can do?" What _did_ one do with dead pets in New York City? _Veterinarian, I guess. They must have some sort of process._

"I j-just wanted you t-to know," Jessica sniffled. "Because you, because you …"

"I know." _Because you loved Claire, and I loved Claire, and Claire loved Horace._ "I know, Jess." He looked at his watch, calculating traffic. "I'll be there in about twenty minutes, okay?"

"You d-don't have to," she said. "I'm f-fine. I w-will be, anyway."

"I know," McCoy said again. "But I'll come over anyway. I'll bring the scotch. You can tell me again about the time he drove a car." That got a small whimper of laughter from her. "We'll plan a memorial service on the campus at Harvard. He was a notable alumni, after all."

Another whisper of a laugh. "Thanks, J-Jack."

"Twenty minutes," he promised her, hung up the phone, and went to find his helmet and his keys.


	7. Shangri-La

_Office of E.A.D.A Jack McCoy_

 _District Attorney_ _'_ _s Office_

 _10th Floor, One Hogan Place_

 _9 pm Monday, 25 November 2002_

* * *

"Fancy seeing you here," Jessica Sheets said.

Jack McCoy looked up from the witness testimony he was reviewing to see her standing in the doorway. "Justice never sleeps," he said. "Or so Adam Schiff used to tell me when I complained about the hours."

She gestured at the glass beside his legal pad, still with a half-inch of amber liquid in the bottom. "Got a spare one of those for me?"

"Always." McCoy fished a second glass and the bottle of scotch out of his drawer and poured her a generous measure. He picked up both glasses and stood, moving to the couch. "Hell of a day."

"I had no idea, Jack," Jessica said. "You know I had no idea."

"I know," McCoy said. He held out her glass to her and when she took it, patted the couch next to him. "First lesson of criminal law, Jess. Defendants lie. Witnesses lie."

"Victims lie," Jessica said, sitting down. "And where does that leave us?"

"Discovering that the canon of ethics is more of a life-raft than the ocean liner they make it seem like in law school," McCoy said.

"Ocean liner, right." She leaned back, resting her head on the back of the couch. "If it's an ocean liner called the _Titanic._ " She sipped her scotch. "I believed her. Even after she lied to me the first time, I believed her."

McCoy patted her knee. "Occupation hazard of having a bleeding heart." He paused. "You know, Serena said to me that being sixteen forever wouldn't be so bad."

Jessica snorted. "She had more fun as a teenager than I did, then. I wouldn't go back to high school for all the tea in China."

"Me neither," McCoy said.

"Law school, now …" Jessica said. "I could see being a law student forever. Or to go back to …" The words hung unspoken between them. _Or any time when Claire was still alive._ Jessica shook her head and said abruptly, "I need to get another cat."

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Horace Mark Two?"

Jessica shrugged. "I need someone to talk to at the end of the day."

"And what am I, chopped liver?" he asked acerbically, and she grinned.

"You know what I mean, Jack. There's only so many evenings I can spend drinking scotch in your office before people will start to talk. Coming out of the closet was hard enough without Bar Association gossip shoving me back in."

"Well, what about that girl you were seeing? Louise? Can't you talk to her?"

"Louise …" She sighed. "Wasn't a big fan of the hours I work."

"They never are," McCoy said. "You need to find yourself a nice lawyer, Jess. Someone _else_ who works all the hours god sends and won't mind that _you_ do."

Jessica arched one eyebrow. "Oh, like you? I couldn't help noticing that Serena's very smart. Very pretty. Just how you like them."

McCoy shook his head. "I'm not involved with Serena."

" _Yet_ ," Jessica said dryly.

"Unfair," he protested. "I'm a reformed man." _Up to a point, at least._

She patted his knee. "I know. Sorry. Mark it down to my jealousy." Her mouth turned up at one corner. " _I_ certainly wouldn't object to spending a few late nights in the office with a Serena Southerlyn to keep me company."

"Come work for me, then," McCoy said, not for the first time. "Get a little experience on my side of the aisle."

"It'd be fun," Jessica said, but she was shaking her head as she spoke.

"We'd make a great team, Jess," he said coaxingly.

"We would," she admitted, and finished her drink. "But we make better adversaries, don't we? When all's said and done?"

He shrugged. "What can I say? I enjoy arguing with you."

Jessica smiled. "Why Jack," she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek before getting to her feet. "I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."


	8. I Didn't Know You Cared

_Office of E.A.D.A Jack McCoy_

 _District Attorney_ _'_ _s Office_

 _10th Floor, One Hogan Place_

 _8 am Thursday, 9 January 2003_

* * *

Jack McCoy looked up as his office door opened and Jessica Sheets strode in. "Jess," he said, trying to remember if there were any pending cases for which she was listed as counsel. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She shut the door firmly behind her, and lowered the blinds. She crossed to the side door and closed that too, before turning to face him. "You've felt a lot of breasts, right?"

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Ah …"

"Don't play coy, Jack, not with me. You've felt a lot of breasts."

He leaned back in his chair. "I have … certainly felt my fair share of breasts over the years, yes."

"Good," Jessica said. She unbuttoned her jacket and shrugged it off, then came around his desk and perched on the edge, by his knees. "Feel mine."

That absolutely demanded the response of _Why Jess, I didn_ _'_ _t know you cared,_ and the words were on the tip of his tongue when he saw that her mouth was set in a tight line. "Which one?" he asked quietly.

"Left," she said. "On the bottom, bottom left."

McCoy _had_ felt a lot of breasts over the years, from small and firm to large and lush and every combination in between. He didn't think he'd ever put his hand on a woman's breast with so little desire.

Or so much fear.

Jessica wasn't wearing a bra and the fabric of her blouse was light. McCoy felt the lump almost immediately, small though it was. As hard as he tried to keep his face neutral, he knew he'd failed when Jessica took a sharp breath. "You feel it," she said. "I'm not imagining it."

"Yes," he admitted. He moved his hand to her arm. "What does your doctor say?"

"We'll find out," Jessica said with an effort at lightness.

"When's your appointment?"

She shrugged. "When I make one."

"Jesus, Jess! How long since you —"

Jessica shook her head. "Couple of weeks is all. I just … it's not necessarily anything, Jack. And I have the Cooper trial coming up —"

"Fuck the Cooper trial." McCoy reached past her and picked up her handbag from the desk. "You want a continuance on Cooper, I'll stand over Alex Cabot until she agrees to it." He rummaged through the bag. "Where's your address book?"

"In my organizer, because _I_ have joined the twenty-first century." Jessica snatched it from his hand as he fished it out. "And don't mess with it or you'll delete all my contacts accidentally or something."

"Call your doctor." McCoy picked up his phone and set it firmly in front of her. "Dial hash-one for an outside line. And you can borrow my quill pen and parchment to write down the time of the appointment."

She didn't reach for the receiver. "Jack —"

"Don't argue with me, Jessica!" McCoy realized he was shouting at the same moment as he realized he was on his feet. He put his hands on her shoulders and managed to moderate his tone a little. "Look. I understand you must be scared. And you're right, it's not necessarily anything. But the sooner you find out, the sooner you'll know that."

She swallowed hard. "And if it is something?"

"Then getting it early is the best possible thing, Jess, you know that."

She gripped his forearm. "If it … if things go badly, will you take Horatio? I'd like him to —"

McCoy shook his head. "No. I don't take in strays, foundlings or orphans. _You_ _'_ _re_ the one with a bleeding heart."

"Then find him a good home —"

"I will put him out on the street to take his chances," McCoy said, evenly and deliberately. "So you'd better get your head straight and do what you need to do to take care of yourself, or Horatio will be a homeless stray." He picked up the receiver himself and offered it to her.

Jessica took it. "You can be a son-of-a-bitch, Jack."

Which, McCoy knew as he listened to her make the appointment, was exactly why Jessica was here in his office today.


	9. One Missed Call

_Part 48, Supreme Court Criminal Term_

 _100 Centre Street, New York_

 _4 pm Tuesday, 21 January 2003_

* * *

"Thank you, Mr Lee," Jessica Sheets. "I don't have any other questions."

Judge Lisa Pongracic turned in her chair to look at Alexandra Cabot at the prosecution bar table. "Redirect, Ms Cabot?"

Alex rose to her feet briefly. "No, your honor."

"Very well. You may step down, Mr Lee." The judge glanced at the papers in front of her. "Is there any prospect of your next witness's testimony being concluded within the hour, Ms Sheets?"

Jessica stood as Alex sat down. "Doubtful, your honor."

"Then we'll recommence on Monday. Court adjourned."

From his position at the back of the courtroom, Jack McCoy watched the judge and jury leaving as Alex gathered her papers and Jessica spoke quietly to her client as the court officers prepared to take him downstairs for the trip back to Rikers.

Alex turned to leave the courtroom and paused as she caught sight of McCoy, then squared her shoulders and strode toward him. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jack," she said when she reached him.

McCoy shook his head. "I'm not bird-dogging your case, Alex. I was down the hall in front of Judge Link until five minutes ago."

"The Hogan case?" Alex asked, and when he nodded, "How's that going?"

"I'm quietly confident," McCoy said as Jessica said goodbye to her client and pushed her papers into her briefcase. _About convicting Father Hogan, anyway._ "Excuse me, Alex, I need to have a word with Jessica Sheets."

Alex, like all good attorneys, had an excellent poker face, but her eyebrows went up infinitesimally and McCoy had to suppress a smile as he watched her try to find a way to tactfully tell him that Jessica was constitutionally indifferent to the patented Jack McCoy charm offensive. "Jack, you, uh … know she's …"

"Representing Codie Jackson," McCoy said, which had the virtue of being both misleading and true. "And I haven't forgotten I owe you a drink, Alex, but I'm going to have to ask for another continuance on it."

It was as tactful a dismissal as he could manage with his nerves wound tight with the urge to push Alex aside, grab Jessica by the shoulders and demand to know if she'd heard anything about the results of the biopsy she'd had on Tuesday.

"That's fine," Alex said. She gave Jessica a nod as the other attorney reached them, and slipped out the door.

McCoy raised his eyebrows and Jessica shook her head. "Nothing yet."

"Call him again," McCoy suggested.

Jessica rolled her eyes and dug her phone from her pocket. "He'll call when the report comes in," she said, flicking the switch to turn the phone back on. "It's not the sort of thing that skips an oncologist's _mind_ —" She fell silent as her phone _bleeped_ , and looked at the screen. "One new message."

McCoy watched silently, hands in his pockets, as Jessica dialed and raised the phone to her ear. She swallowed convulsively, met McCoy's gaze and gave a small nod. _It_ _'_ _s him_ , that nod meant.

Then she closed her eyes and McCoy felt his heart sink as tears slipped beneath her eyelashes and tracked down her cheeks. _It_ _'_ _s early_ , he told himself, rehearsing what he'd say to Jessica as soon as she ended the call. _It_ _'_ _s early, it's treatable, it's going to be a bitch but you'll get through it._

"Jess," he said softly the second she lowered the phone from her ear. "It's —"

"Benign," she said, clapped her hand over her mouth and began to sob.

"Oh thank God." McCoy wrapped his arms around her _and to hell with the rumor mill_. "Thank God, Jess, thank God."

Jessica was clearly as little concerned with Bar Association gossip as he was just at the moment, leaning against him with her face against his shoulder. "I was s-so scared."

"Me too," McCoy admitted.

She gave a muffled snort. "Then your poker face is pretty damn good."

"So I'm told." He rubbed her back gently. "What else did the doctor say?"

"He wants to take the lump out," Jessica said. She straightened, and McCoy let her go. "To be on the safe side. I have to call his secretary and make an appointment to talk about it."

"Do it on the way," McCoy suggested.

"On the way to where?"

"On the way to the drink we both richly deserve and desperately need," McCoy said, and Jessica laughed and followed him through the courtroom door, linking her arm through his in a way that made it clear as day to any onlookers that while defense and prosecution might not be friends, as far as these two members of the New York Bar were concerned, they were at the very least ... _friendly._


	10. A Whiff Of Brimstone

A/N: This and the following chapters are a post-ep for "Bodies" that … kind of got out of control.

* * *

 _Apartment of E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy_

 _1 am Friday 24 October 2003_

* * *

Jack McCoy was almost asleep when he heard the knock on his door.

He was on his feet, scrubbing one hand over his face, before he was fully awake. A glance at his watch told him it was well past midnight. At this hour, it was some kind of emergency. Something Complaints couldn't handle without kicking it upstairs …

Except that would merit a phone call, first. Almost everything would merit a phone call, first.

 _Adam Schiff_ _'_ _s voice hoarse on the answering machine, saying "Pick up the phone, Jack …"_

Everything would merit a phone call, except the very worst news for the very closest affected.

 _Jesus, Lisbeth._ He stumbled down the hall and flung open the door, expecting uniformed officers, expecting the strained faces of young people burdened with news too heavy for them to bear.

Found himself blinking at Jessica Sheets.

"So I heard my former client filed another appeal," she said. Her lips trembled.

"Come in." McCoy didn't wait for her to accept the invitation, drawing her inside the apartment by the hand and then slipping his arm around her shoulders as he closed the door behind her.

"I was just passing, at least, I was nineteen blocks away, and I thought, well, I know somewhere there's always decent quality scotch — " She turned away from him, turned back, working hard for insouciance and failing.

He squeezed her shoulder "I'm glad you came here."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I know it's just a sentencing appeal. He'll never get out. I _know_ — god, if Professor O'Connoll could see me now. Running to the nearest man just because I got a rough bounce on a client. She'd say something about standing the heat and getting out of the kitchen."

"Remarks like that are a luxury afforded to those who have no experience with either heat _or_ kitchens," McCoy said, and Jessica heaved a giant sigh and burst into tears. "Shhh." He wrapped her up in a bear-hug, one hand cupping the back of her neck and drawing her head to his shoulder. "Shhh, Jess, it's alright."

"T-tell me to be s-sensible," she sobbed.

"You are being sensible. You needed a friend and you came looking for one."

"I sh-shouldn't – he's locked up. He w-won't ever get out. And I —"

McCoy rubbed her back. "Mark Bruner scared the socks off of you. He scared the socks off me, too. And if _I_ _'_ _d_ ever gotten into his cab, I would have got out again unharmed."

"That's the thing, I —" She bit the rest of the sentence off, shaking from head to foot, but McCoy could hear the rest of that sentence, the words that attorney-client privilege kept her from saying. _That_ _'_ _s the thing, I did._

 _He told her that she_ _'_ _d been in his cab._ And probably, from what McCoy had seen of Bruner, told her in detail what he could have done to her, too.

Nearly three decades in the District Attorney's Office had given McCoy a large and expressive vocabulary, including an extensive range of profanity, but right at the moment he couldn't think of a word that could even come close to describing Mark Bruner.

"I don't believe in the devil, Jess," he said, "but I do believe in evil, and next to the dictionary definition they should have a picture of Bruner. You've had a whiff of brimstone. Come into the kitchen and have a belt of scotch to wash the taste away."

She started to let him guide her down the hall, and then stopped. "Jack. I didn't think – do you have company?"

"Not tonight," he assured her, although a more truthful answer would have been _not any_ _more, tonight,_ Anne Paulsen having taken her leave in plenty of time for her to get home and put in another few hours of work. "Come on."

"Well." Jessica took a seat at the kitchen table. "I suppose you wouldn't have answered the door if you had."

McCoy turned, bottle in hand, eyebrows raised. "Do you think I would have left a friend on the doorstep?"

"Ah, but Jack … I'm not _your_ friend."

He splashed liquor into two glasses and set one in front of her. "I'd like to think we're friendly, at least."

She picked up the glass and studied it. "Because of Claire."

"Jess," he said, taking the chair across from her. "Claire …" And _god_ , it still hurt to say her name, after all these years.

She took a solid belt of the scotch. "If she'd been the slightest bit bicurious, Jack, you wouldn't have stood a chance."

"Believe me, I know." McCoy gave her his best roguish smile. "If _you_ were the slightest bit bicurious, _I_ wouldn't stand a chance."

He won a laugh from her. She raised her glass. "To things never meant to be."

He copied the gesture. "Amen."

Jessica tossed back the rest of her drink. "Any sign Tim Schwimmer is going to crack?"

McCoy scrubbed his face with his hand. "You just come here to drink my scotch and bust my balls?"

She shook her head. "Serious question, Jack. One of the reasons I _am_ here at this ungodly hour — apart from your scotch."

"Then, no." He poured a little more liquor into her glass. "Not as yet, but give him time. Attica's got to be a shock to a boy like him."

"How long will you wait before you cry uncle?" Jessica asked, staring into her glass.

McCoy shrugged. "He was sentenced to five years, so … five years."

"Jesus, Jack!" She shook her head. "They'll tear him apart in there."

"He'll be fine," McCoy said. "Defense lawyers do easy time, and he'll get plenty of practice writing appeals."

"He's just some kid who got in over his head."

McCoy leaned forward, elbows on the kitchen table. "He aided and abetted in concealing multiple murders. How much of a kid do you have to be to know that's wrong?"

Jessica looked away, lips set in a tight line, and then she heaved a sigh and looked back. "I can't talk you into going easy on him?"

"Those families deserve answers, Jess," McCoy said.

"Fine," Jessica said flatly. McCoy raised his eyebrows as she drained her glass again and set it down hard on the table. "Then you can do _me_ a favor, instead." She took a plain, blank envelope from the inside pocket of her jacket and held it out to him.

McCoy took it. It was unsealed, and inside he found a letter. The format was familiar to him — a complaint to the Bar Ethics Committee, requesting sanctions up to and including disbarment, against …

 _Jessica Sheets?_ He skipped to the bottom of the letter to see whose ass he was going to have to kick into next week, and saw, beneath the blank space left for a signature, _John J McCoy._

McCoy let the letter drop to the tabletop, and looked up to see Jessica holding out a pen to him. "What the hell is this?"

"Sign it, Jack. Please."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he demanded. "Hell will freeze over before I put my name to this nonsense!"

"I need you to sign the letter," Jessica said. "I'm asking you to, Jack. Please."

"And what are you supposed to have done, that I'm asking to have your license stripped?" he asked, picking up the letter again. _That the above-named attorney, contrary to the canons of ethics, did reveal privileged communications from her client, Mark Bruner …_ He stared at her. "He told you, too, didn't he? He told you where the bodies are."

"Sign the letter," Jessica said. "Sign the letter, and I'll tell you what he told me."

"Or I can _not_ sign the letter, and you can tell me, and next week a patrolman can happen to stumble across —"

She cut him off. "You know I can't do that."

"It's just us here, Jess," McCoy said. "No-one ever needs to know."

" _I'd_ know," she said simply. "Please, Jack. You're right, the families need to know. And I can't just sit still and leave Tim Schwimmer in jail for something _I'm_ just as guilty of —"

"Did you go and view Bruner's handiwork?" McCoy snapped, and when she shook her head, "Then you're not guilty of anything except being in the 18-B counsel pool."

"Please sign it," Jessica said, her voice cracking. "Please, Jack. So I can tell you. Please —"

McCoy crumpled the letter and got up, going around the table and drawing her to her feet. "I'm not going to get you disbarred, Jess, so you can forget about that damned letter."

"Then what am I going to do?" she cried. "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

He pulled her firmly into an embrace. " _We_ are going to find another solution."


	11. A Whiff Of Something

_Chambers of Judge Hugo Bright_

 _Supreme Court, 100 Centre Street_

 _8.30 am_ _Monday 27 October 2003_

* * *

Judge Hugo Bright leaned back in his chair. "Let me get this straight," he said. "You want me to issue a warrant authorizing the police to eavesdrop on a conversation between a prisoner and an attorney? Don't take this the wrong way, Mr McCoy, but have you completely lost your mind?"

"On the contrary, your honor," McCoy said. "A prisoner and an attorney, yes, but not a prisoner and _his_ attorney. Ms Sheets _did_ represent Mr Bruner, but she withdrew and was replaced by Mr Timothy Schwimmer."

"That's the Timothy Schwimmer doing time in Attica because you couldn't persuade him to break attorney-client privilege?" Judge Bright asked, and when McCoy nodded, "I'm getting a whiff of something I don't much like the smell of, counselor."

"Your honor —"

Judge Bright turned to Jessica. "Mr Bruner told you what he told Mr Schwimmer, didn't he?"

"Your honor, for obvious reasons, I can't disclose whether or not that's true."

Bright ignored her. "And now you intend to go talk to him, and when he tells you again what he told you before, Mr McCoy will claim it's no longer a privileged communication." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, counselors. It's not that I'm not sympathetic to your dilemma, Ms Sheets, but you can't withdraw from representing a client and then use privileged communications to inform an attempt to interrogate that same client as an agent of the D.A's Office."

"I don't believe that the target of this investigation had anything to do with the request to be relieved as counsel filed by Ms Sheets," McCoy said.

Bright raised an eyebrow at Jessica, who said, "Again, for obvious reasons, I can't be specific."

"I can," McCoy said. He took a sheet of paper from his bag and offered it to the judge. "An affidavit from A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn who assisted me on the case, your honor, detailing remarks made to her by Mark Bruner. I invite you to draw the obvious conclusion as to the reason Ms Sheets felt unable to represent Mr Bruner with the zealousness required by the canons. I was present during the interviews and can attest to the accuracy of Ms Southerlyn's statement."

Judge Bright took the affidavit and read it. "Even drawing what you call _the obvious conclusion_ ," he said, "that still doesn't resolve the problem that the _other_ obvious conclusion here is that your aim is to get Mr Bruner to repeat, on tape, statements he originally made under privilege."

McCoy leaned forward. "I will stipulate that we will only use _new_ information —"

"You'll unring the bell?" the judge asked. "Nice try, Mr McCoy. You mean you'll bootstrap privileged information into an inevitable discovery argument. If not, why the warrant? Ms Sheets could simply visit Mr Bruner and report any new statements he made to you."

"Your honor, with respect," McCoy said, "you haven't dealt with Mark Bruner. I have. The warrant is to enable not just recording, but communication with Ms Sheets during the interview, including by an expert consultant psychiatrist. If it will assist your honor, I will agree to limit the auditors of the interview to those absolutely necessary and to agree that Ms Sheets will review the transcript and redact all privileged material before it's made available to others."

"Except she's the only one who can know if _all_ the privileged material is included in that redaction."

"I promise —" Jessica started.

McCoy spoke straight over her, coldly furious. "Your honor, I am professionally and personally outraged at the imputation against my colleague. If the unblemished career of Ms Sheets is not enough to prove to your honor that she has the highest ethical standards, basic logic should tell you that if she were inclined to breach privilege in _any_ way, this entire rigmarole would be unnecessary. A simple anonymous letter would suffice. She would be far from the first defense attorney to resolve a conflict between personal and professional ethics in such a way and her insistence on an above-board —"

"Alright, alright!" Judge Bright said, holding up a hand. "I take your point. Ms Sheets, like Caesar's wife, is above reproach." He paused. "I'll review the list of individuals who will audit the interview live. Ms Sheets will make it explicitly clear to Mr Bruner that she is not his lawyer and nothing he says to her is privileged. _And_ I will review the redacted transcript _before_ it's made available to the police and the District Attorney's Office."

"Agreed," McCoy said. "On the condition that I —"

"Mr McCoy, _I_ make the conditions here," Judge Bright said. "That's why they gave me this nice black robe."

"—can impose additional security restrictions on Mr Bruner for the purpose of the interview if I don't consider those of the Department of Corrections to be adequate."

The judge leaned back in his chair, frowning. "You think that Ms Sheets could be in danger?"

"I don't think that Mr Bruner has anything to lose, your honor," McCoy said.


	12. Therapeutic Purposes

_Rikers Island_

 _10 am_ _Wednesday 29 October 2003_

* * *

"You can walk out at any time," McCoy said, not for the first time. "He's restrained to the chair and the chair is bolted to the floor. You can just get up and walk to the door —"

"I know, Jack," Jessica said. She adjusted her hair. "Are you sure the ear-piece isn't visible?"

"Don't do that," the N.Y.P.D. technician in charge of the monitoring and recording equipment said. "Don't touch your hair at all. If you move the ear-wig, it interferes with our connection."

"It's completely hidden," McCoy assured her. "Jess, you don't have to do this —"

"Ah, but I do," she said lightly, so lightly he might have been convinced if he hadn't been able to see her pulse beating at the hollow of her throat as rapidly as a hummingbird's.

"Emil will be —"

"I _know_ ," she said. She looked past him to where Emil Skoda sat, headphones ready in his hand. "Any last minute advice, Dr Skoda?"

Skoda shook his head. "You know it all. He's a monster, but you've dealt with monsters. He's careful, but the longer he talks, the more he'll let slip. Stay in the room as long as you can. Make him work for it."

She nodded, straightened her jacket with a decisive jerk, and made her way out of the room.

McCoy took the seat beside Skoda. He couldn't listen in on the conversation, but he could watch the TV screen. "Make him work for what?" he asked Skoda.

"Her fear," Skoda said. "Her distress. You know this guy, Jack. He likes to hurt people."

"Maybe this is a mistake," McCoy said, watching Bruner look up as Jessica stepped into view on the screen.

Skoda put on the headphones. "What are your options?" he said, and shrugged. "Wait and see if someone uncovers these girls' bodies, or take a chance."

"Worse than that," McCoy said. "If Jess can't get what we need from Bruner, she's prepared to break privilege. And her ethics won't allow her to get away with it."

"Mine wouldn't either," Skoda said. He pulled the microphone toward him a little and pressed the button. "Let him ramble," he said to Jessica. "I know it's hard to listen to, but the more he talks about what he'd like to do, the more chance he'll let something slip about what he _did_ do."

 _Oh, Jesus Christ._ On the screen, Bruner was leaning forward as far as his restraints would allow, growing more animated. McCoy couldn't see Jessica's face, but she was sitting still, hands resting on the table. He didn't know what would be worse — to be able to hear what Bruner was saying to Jessica, or to only be able to imagine it, as he could now.

The minutes stretched. On the screen, Jessica leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. Bruner talked. She shrugged, shook her head. He got more agitated, shouting —

And then lunged out of his chair.

The restraints brought him up short before he'd even half-way risen to his feet as Jessica sprang back, her chair tumbling to the floor. Bruner was grinning at her, saying something —

"Get her out of there," McCoy said to Skoda, and without waiting for an answer, went to the door and told the corrections officer there the same thing.

It was unnecessary — McCoy heard the door of the interview room clang even before he'd finished speaking, and a second later Jessica came into view at a fast walk that was only just not a run. She was holding her hands stiffly away from her sides and when she came closer McCoy saw her jacket was splattered with spittle.

"Get it off me," she said tightly when she reached him. "Get a cloth, or —"

"Turn around," McCoy said, and when she did he slipped the jacket from her shoulders and drew it off her arms. He bundled it together, lining out. "There. We'll get this —"

"Send it to Goodwill," Jessica said. "I don't ever want to see it again, I don't — I need some air. I have to get some air."

"I'll walk you out," McCoy said, taking her elbow with his free hand. He tossed the jacket through the door into the observation room as they passed it and steered Jessica down the corridor to the gate. She signed out with a shaking hand, tossed her pass on the desk and headed for the exit.

McCoy signed out as well and caught up with her on the steps. Jessica took a few deep breaths as if the smell of car exhaust and concrete was an alpine meadow. "He didn't give me anything," she said.

"You don't know that," McCoy said.

"I was in the room, Jack," she snapped. "He didn't give me anything. Nothing I can — nothing I don't have to redact."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Let the detectives decide that. It'll take a few days for them to finish the transcript. Come on. I think you and Emil both deserve a drink."

Jessica looked at her watch. "Jack, it's —"

"Eight pm somewhere in the world," Skoda said as he came down the steps to join them. "If necessary, Ms Sheets, I'll write a prescription. I don't usually recommend alcohol for therapeutic circumstances, but today I think I'll make an exception."


	13. Silver Bells And Cockle Shells

_Supreme Court, 100 Centre Street_

 _6.30 pm_ _Friday 1 November 2003_

* * *

Two days later, at the end of the day, McCoy made the time to personally pick up the transcript from Judge Bright's clerk, after the judge had reviewed Jessica's redactions. He stopped in the courthouse corridor and tore open the envelope, scanning the pages.

 _BRUNER_ : _You would make a beautiful addition to my collection, to my garden, Jessica … for you I might take a different approach. I would so enjoy visiting you and hearing how you were getting on with your row of new friends …_

He wanted to stop reading. It was a justifiable decision — everything in the transcript would be gone over with a fine-tooth comb by the police. If there was anything there to find, they'd find it.

But Jessica had sat through that conversation, and then read every word of it to work out what her ethical obligations required her to delete. The least McCoy could do was look at it once.

 _SHEETS: I don't believe you have a collection_.

 _BRUNER: Ask my lawyer, Jessica. He saw it. I don't think he really appreciated it, though._

 _SHEETS: He didn't see anything because there's nothing to see. If he admits that, he doesn't get to be a hero._

 _BRUNER: You could go and see for yourself, Jessica. Jessica. Do people call you Jessie? You could be friends with contrary Mary, Jessie. And all the rest of the pretty little girls._

Pages and pages of it, interrupted in places by the neat black boxes of redacted text. A sadistic psychopath amusing himself.

 _A_ careful _sadistic psychopath_ , McCoy realized as he scanned the pages. Just as Bruner hadn't let anything slip to Serena and McCoy, or to the police, he had walked a careful line with Jessica, too. McCoy forced himself read all the way to the end of the final page, but nothing he read cast any light on where Mark Bruner had hidden the bodies of his victims. _Dammit_.

 _And damn him._

Jessica would have seen exactly the same thing as McCoy had. As he hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of the 27th Precinct, McCoy hoped that there wasn't a complaint notice with her name on it and somebody else's signature working its way through the bureaucracy of the Bar Ethics Committee at that very moment.

At the precinct, he handed the envelope holding the transcript over to Ed Green. "I hope you and Lennie can see something in there that eludes _me_ ," he said.

"If we can't, the L.T. has called in a consult from a specialist in crazy," Green said, taking the transcript from the envelope and flipping through the transcript.

"Emil Skoda?" McCoy asked.

Green shook his head, but before he could say anything Anita Van Buren's voice said behind McCoy, "Counselor. Do you know Detective Eames and Detective Goren?"

McCoy turned and found himself facing a man even taller than he was, with close cropped hair and an intent gaze. He offered his hand and the detective stepped even closer to McCoy to take it, crowding him and emphasizing his size. McCoy refused to fall for the cheap but effective trick, leaning forward a little himself.

A flicker of humor lit the big detective's face, so briefly McCoy thought he might be imagining it. "Robert Goren," he said. "And this is my partner, Alex Eames."

Alex Eames was tiny, especially beside Goren. And she was enormously pregnant. "Hi," she said, offering her own hand past Goren, who immediately moved aside. "You probably don't remember, but —"

"People v Burke," McCoy said. "1999, pornography snowballed into racketeering. You were the arresting officer. I wish all my police witnesses handled themselves as well on cross as you did. What brings Vice to the 2-7?"

"Major Case now," Eames said. "Our captain said you had something that needed to be read between the lines." She jerked her thumb at Goren. "That's Bobby's special brand of functional dyslexia. He'd write between the lines, too — if I let him anywhere near the paperwork."

Her tone was dryly affectionate, and Goren ducked his head as if she'd given him an embarrassingly effusive compliment.

"I'm Ed Green. It's good to meet you," Green said. "I'll make some copies of this transcript. Lennie's picking up dinner — any objections to Chinese?"

Eames shook her head. "But I'm going to appropriate your chair," she said. "I'm about fifteen minutes from maternity leave and my feet are _killing_ me."

"Help yourself," Green said, and headed for the photocopier.

As Eames lowered herself into Green's desk chair, McCoy was amused to see Goren twitch slightly in her direction, a quickly-restrained impulse to help her sit down. From what McCoy had seen of Alex Eames, she'd have bitten Goren's head off for the offer. _And he knows it_. "What do you know about Mark Bruner?" he asked them both.

"Serial killer, psycho, grade-A piece of shit," Eames said.

"He's playing games with the location of his victims' bodies," McCoy said. "He's told two lawyers, knowing they can't reveal it without violating privilege."

"That's alright," Goren said with a slight smile. "I like games. And I play to win."

"I know about the little boy from Legal Aid," Eames said. "You sent him upstate, and I'd shake your hand for it if I could get out of this chair without help. Who's the second?"

"His first counsel, Jessica Sheets," McCoy said. "She agreed to try and get new information from him — information that wouldn't be privileged. That's the transcript."

Goren raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you prosecute _her_?" he asked.

"She didn't break the law," McCoy said. "Tim Schwimmer did." Goren's gaze was keen and bright, and McCoy looked at Eames instead. "She's willing to breach privilege and face disbarment to give those families some closure — if we can't find another way."

"She's a good-looking woman, I'm guessing, this Jessica Sheets," Goren said as Lennie Briscoe came through the door laden down with bags filled with cardboard take-away containers.

McCoy bristled, but before he could say anything Briscoe laughed. "Good-looking and off limits," he said. "Except maybe to your partner. You ever watch a mook walk because a defense attorney was willing to break the rules?" Goren and Eames both nodded. "I saw one of our collars go down for full weight because Jessica Sheets _wouldn't_."

"I do know Jessica personally," McCoy admitted. "She was a close friend of a woman I was …" He met Briscoe's gaze, shared grief and shared guilt heavy between them. "A woman I was involved with. But I'd prosecute her regardless, if she broke the law. She wouldn't be the first friend I put in jail."

"Transcripts for everyone," Green said, returning from the photocopier and handing them out.

"And food," Briscoe added, setting out the containers. "There's your rabbit food, Ed. Beef, chicken, pork, all the major food groups, for the rest of us."

McCoy knew he should leave them to it. There were files on his desk back at One Hogan Place he could be working on — there were always files on his desk he could be working on — and he'd already read the transcript and found nothing.

"There's a name in there," he offered, instead of leaving. "Bruner mentioned a _Mary_. That could at least narrow down one victim's identity. Third page."

All four cops turned pages.

"Contrary Mary," Green said. "Maybe she fought him."

"The rest of the pretty girls," Goren murmured. He flipped back to the front and scanned the lines of text. "The pretty girls … the pretty girls …" He paused, one finger resting on the page. "The _garden_ of pretty girls _in a row_." He looked up. "Her name might or might not be Mary, but I'd guess she's _quite_ contrary."

McCoy glanced at Eames and realized that Briscoe and Green had done the same thing, all three of them looking to Goren's partner for a clue on how to react to Goren.

Eames was digging in to the chicken kung pao with apparent unconcern.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary," Goren said, as if it explained everything. "How does your garden grow?"

"So, what, you think they're somewhere with a garden?" Green asked.

Goren shook his head. " _They're_ the garden. He says so, page two. His _garden_ of _pretty girls._ Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells …"

"And pretty girls all in a row," Eames finished. "Cockle shells — near the water?"

"Bruner didn't exactly have the income for a waterfront property in Manhattan," Green said.

"Near a church?" Eames suggested. "Any churches with silver bells?"

"I don't know if they actually have bells made of silver," Briscoe said, "but the Seamen's Church Institute has an annual dinner. The Silver Bell Awards. Down at pier sixty."

"That is _well_ out of a hack driver's price range," Green said.

"How about New Jersey?" Briscoe asked. "Because the S.C.I. has an office there, too."

Green raised his eyebrows. "I'll find the address."

The Seamen's Church Institute office was in the heart of the port of Newark.

"Half hour drive from Manhattan in the small hours of the morning," Briscoe said. "But I doubt he's left these girls in an office building."

"No, no," Goren said. "But it's a _port_ , detective. And what do you find at ports?"

"Warehouses," Green said. "Cargo containers." He reached for his phone. "Let's get the local canine unit out there to sniff around."

* * *

.o0o.


	14. One Day

_Apartment of Jessica Sheets_

 _2 am Saturday 2_ _November 2003_

At two in the morning, traffic was light enough for Jack McCoy to cover the distance between the 27th Precinct and Jessica Sheet's front door in a little over ten minutes. He locked the motorcycle, tucked his helmet under his arm, and rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.

Jessica opened the door a few minutes after he knocked, in a T-shirt and pajama pants, hair mussed from sleep. "I guess turnabout is fair play," she said when she saw McCoy, and stepped back. "Come in."

He did, and closed the door behind him. "Hudson and Wilson cargo storage, Newark New Jersey," he said, and Jessica put a hand over her mouth. "We found them, Jess."

"Thank God," she said on a shaky breath. "Thank God. Oh, Jesus, Jack, I really do like being a lawyer."

"I know," he said. He set his helmet on the cluttered table by the door and touched her shoulder gently. Jessica came easily into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist as if, for once, they were not just friendly but actually friends.

"What about Tim Schwimmer?" she asked.

"I can't apply to have a conviction set aside when it was correct in fact and law." McCoy shrugged a little. "But if he wants to file another appeal, I don't see a reason any more to put my back out defending it. Is that enough to get me back in your good books?"

"I think your name is there permanently after this," Jessica said. "God, Jack. I really was braced to walk the plank. I couldn't see anything else to do."

"That's because you play by the rules," McCoy told her. "Which is your charm. Whereas I spend my time getting _around_ the rules, which is mine."

Jessica laughed softly. "That, and the fact that you're one of the good guys," she said. "Want a drink to celebrate my no-longer terminal career?"

McCoy shook his head. "I came on the bike, so I'd better not. Rain-check?"

"Always," Jessica said. She leaned back a little, looking up at him. "Thanks, Jack. I know you did it for … I know you didn't do it for _me,_ but thanks."

 _I know you did it for Claire._ For Claire, the only reason they'd ever met as anything other than courtroom adversaries. Claire, beautiful and brilliant, who'd made both their lives so much richer — and then broken them both in ways no-one else could understand in one godawful instant when one drunk driver ran one red light.

Claire, both the bridge between them and the impassable chasm beneath it.

"I _did_ do it for you," McCoy said. He meant it as a kind white lie but as the words left his mouth he realized they were true. They'd met because of Claire, eight years ago — but the seven years since they'd both lost her, seven years of being friendly, if not friends … _Seven years._ It seemed like the blink of an eye, it seemed like forever, and McCoy wondered again how he'd managed to get through all the days and worse, the nights, that made up those seven long years.

Wondered how Jessica had.

"I did it for you," he said again. "We've known each other a long time, Jess. That's worth something."

Her eyes brimmed with tears. "It feels like no time at all," she said, and McCoy knew her mind was following the same track his own thoughts had taken.

"I know." He tugged her closer again, rubbing her back. "People used to tell me that it would get easier. That time heals all wounds."

"Time wounds all heels," Jessica said against his shoulder. "Just ask Achilles."

"I wish I knew what to tell you, Jess." He smoothed her hair. "Not least because that would mean I'd know what to tell _myself._ " _Move on,_ Liz Olivet had told him, although not in so many words. _Accept that she's gone_. Perhaps the worst advice McCoy had ever received in his life, and not a recommendation he was going to pass on to Jessica.

"I sometimes wonder if I should be jealous of you," Jessica said. "Because you had … because of what you had. And then I wonder if _you_ should be jealous of _me_ , because it can't be as bad, I _know_ it can't be as bad, as it is for you."

"I didn't know it was a competition," McCoy said a little dryly, and she gave a whimper of laughter.

"Between us, Jack, isn't it always? What the hell would we be to each other if we weren't trying to beat each other up in the courtroom?"

"We could be friends," McCoy suggested. "We're already friendly. We could be friends."

Her arms tightened around his waist. "Maybe," she said quietly. "Maybe one day."

McCoy knew she meant _one day, when we can both see each other past Claire._

 _If either of us ever can._

"One day," he said, holding her as tightly as she was holding him. "One day, Jess. One day, we'll be friends."

 _fin_


End file.
